In Europe, over the past years, local government and other regional and statutory self governing institutions have seen a general shift of legislation and power structure to a higher centre. Regional political integration can also be attributed to the blurring lines of national sovereignty and to institutional dominance in policy making. The Caribbean is also attest of such, albeit, to a lesser extent than in Europe. At the same time that power is being centralized in the Caribbean, there is also a growing and renewed attention on regional and local government from theorists and policy makers alike. More and more, emphasis on local government and regional power structures is seen as a strategy to promote and deepen democracy at the local level. Indeed the interplay of supranational and even national authority on the global level and local governance structures at the community level speaks to the necessity and inevitability of the latter and a justification for the concentration of such. The paper suggests that local government initiatives and a strengthening of the core structures are answers to democratic deficit¹ that would normally arise from regional political integration (Hurell and Menon, 1996) in the Caribbean. In recognition of the changing context of governance structures in a regional political environment, the aim of the paper is to show that the interplay between local government structure and national and supranational structures affect democratic legitimization and authority. It also argues that local, national and supranational authorities need to interact and compliment each other in order for any to be efficient. The paper will use data from the Caribbean, and is based on research from the white paper, on the future of local government in England.² Additionally a comparative angle will be achieved by focusing on the work of Lidström (1998)³ and Tuene (2000)⁴

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